Category Archives: Federal Agencies

Ron Paul writes: I believe incidents such as that in Nevada show we may be witnessing the failure of the American authoritarian warfare-welfare state — and that of course would be good. This is why it is so important that those of us who understand the freedom philosophy spread the truth about how statism caused our problems and why liberty is the only solution.

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As the TAC grows each year, there are an increasing number of voices calling for us to register as a non-profit organization, ostensibly allowing us to get the “big donors” that we lack. I’ve refused, on principle, and those principles haven’t changed. But there are also practical reasons to avoid this IRS special status as…

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We have another fake reform scheme that Congress claims will “fix” the illegal NSA spying program and make it “constitutional.” However, when you examine the specific details of their proposal, it actually does the opposite.

There should be no local police, no county sheriff’s deputies and no state law enforcement officers involved. If states would simply quit cooperating, many of these constitutional violations would not happen. The feds don’t have the resources. They depend on state and local help.

As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) doles out billions of dollars to convince local police departments to surrender control to the federal agency, a recent report indicates that intelligence gathered at precincts-cum-surveillance-centers will be shared among all levels of law enforcement.

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Last week, the FDA announced a plan to require food makers to phase out trans fats. According to an AP report, the agency did not set a specific timeline, but will collect comments before determining just how long food producers will have to get the nasty fat out.

Think state and local law enforcement aren’t watching you with high-tech federally-owned drones? Think again.

In a new post, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports that Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, released an updated list of “times the agency has flown its Predator drones on behalf of other agencies — 500 flights in total over a three-year period.”

Some of the more interesting revelations contained in the report — obtained by EFF as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit — include the fact that CBP drones flew more than 100 missions on behalf of the Department of Justice.

As the EFF story indicates, this level of cooperation between CBP and the Department of Justice “is in direct contradiction to a recently released DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) Report (pdf) that stated DHS had flown its drones on only two occasions for DOJ law enforcement components.”

Although many of the agencies borrowing CBP drones were revealed in earlier lists, there are a few new entries: “Grand Forks SWAT, the North Dakota Narcotics Task Force, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Minnesota Drug Task Force, and several branches of the military.”

Read that again: “Several branches of the military” are flying drone missions above the United States. For what lawful purpose could the armed forces be conducting such operations domestically? Furthermore, the likelihood is high that such activities run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the U.S. military from performing domestic law-enforcement duties.